How Women Make Money Online: Learn SEO

It’s time for another post in our How Women Make Money Online series. So far we’ve talked about how to get started and looked at a few of my personal favorite female entrepreneurs who have had success in their individual niche markets. Today we are going to talk about the importance of SEO. Whether you have a blog or a company website SEO is an important tool that helps new clients find you online.

With that said, please welcome Alexa from Single Moms Income. She grew her online career and made enough money from being self employed that she could quite her day job. She now works for herself, doing what she loves – and learning SEO was a big part of making that dream come true.

When did you start blogging and why?

I started blogging in November of 2012, just a few months after getting divorced. At the time I was desperate for a way to earn more money so that I could support myself and two kids and I knew that looking online was my best bet. I started my blog, Single Moms Income, to keep track of all the different online business ideas I was trying and to connect with like-minded people.

What’s the focus of your site and has it changed over the years?

The focus of my site has definitely changed over the years. When I first began I treated it a little like a diary and it had a much more personal touch. I’ve always talked about personal finance and work from home ideas but have transitioned into more home-based business topics.

Alexa from Single Moms Income and her two kids.

What do you attribute your online success to?

I attribute my online success to persistence. I think most people give up way too soon.

I did not have any overnight successes. In fact, it took me around two years to consistently earn $1,000 per month from my blog. Once I hit that mark things quickly snowballed but if I calculated hourly pay I probably made $2/hour those first couple of years.

Why is a focus on SEO so important when being online?

SEO is important for a variety of reasons. If you’re a blogger having good SEO helps people find you through the search engine which becomes a passive source of traffic unlike social media which can eat up your time very quickly.

If you sell a product or service SEO can bring targeted customers to you and help you make more sales. SEO is very important.

How did you learn about writing, running a website and SEO?

I learned through trial and error. I’ve come a long way these past few years. I’m actually embarrassed to go back and read some of my first blog posts – they are horrible! The more you do something the better you get and fortunately for me, I like to experiment.

The biggest chunk of traffic to my blog comes from the search engines. I have an SEO guide on my blog for that covers the exact steps I take when it comes to SEO which was all learned through a lot of experimenting.

Personal Confession: I purchased Alexa’s SEO guide about a month ago and I find it very helpful. So often techies talk in a language I don’t understand and Alexa talks as if she’s sitting beside you at the kitchen table. The real life examples are helpful and can get anyone started with SEO – regardless of your knowledge level. It’s also only $9. That’s an investment I can afford!

Is it easy for anyone, even beginners, to get started making money online?

I get asked this a lot and really depends on what you want to do. There are a ton of ways to earn money online. If you want to get started in an employee or independent contractor type position you can make money pretty quickly as long as you have the skillset needed.

Making money from a blog, however, can take a lot of time. It’s easy to get started but you’ve got to stick with it to see results.

What is the number one piece of advice you would give to anyone who wants to start an online business.

Don’t give up. It might take you a whole lot of experimenting to earn money and figure out what works for you. Push through and keep trying.

Also, take all advice with a grain of salt. There’s so much conflicting advice out there that it can be overwhelming. At the end of the day you have to do what feels right to you.

About the author

TK

1 Comment

I have had similar results as you. I found that I didn’t really start to make much money until my blog had been around 1.5 – 2 years. Then things snowballed a bit where I’ve made over $1,000 the past couple of months. It isn’t enough for me to live on, but who’s to say how high that monthly income might increase to down the road if I continue to focus on SEO??